I’m a person that truly believes that the eyes are the mirror to the soul. Naturally I was extremely excited to meet and interview current light heavyweight champion, Artem Vakhitov. I wanted to catch a glimpse of what his opponents see in their staredowns, what makes him tick. Fortunately, prior to the grand slam Glory 51 I had that opportunity to meet and speak with him. If nothing else I can say, he is more than meets the eye. Artem Vakhitov, like many practitioners of the sport began at an early age, beginning with karate at age six and later [read more]

Who knew that all it took to send an event into chaos was one of the tournament fights suffering a concussion? It was reported by GLORY today that Robert Thomas suffered a concussion in training and had to be pulled from the GLORY 52 middleweight tournament. Instead of finding a replacement, GLORY opted to scrap the tournament altogether and here we are with the entire GLORY 52 and SuperFight Series re-ordered. Simon Marcus now fights Zack Wells on the main card, Mike Lemaire vs. Chris Camozzi and Stoyan Koprivlenski vs. Josh Jauncey is on the main card, while Meksen vs. [read more]

The LiverKick Rankings are updated quarterly, which means that these are about a month-and-a-half late, but that just meant more work for us in tabulating the rankings and taking timelines into account. So, with that being said, the LiverKick Rankings are updated, rage accordingly. Let’s take a look at the major changes since the October update. Heavyweight Not a ton of movement here, but the movement that did happen was important. Benjamin Adegbuyi reclaimed his #2 spot with a tournament victory, while Guto Inocente moves down for being in the same tournament, not losing, but not winning, either (he had [read more]

On Friday, April 6th Bellator Kickboxing returns with Bellator Kickboxing 9. The card has yet to be fully filled-out yet, but what has been officially announced is interesting, to say the least. The main event sees Raymond Daniels looking to defend the Bellator Welterweight Championship against Djibril Ehouo. Jorina Baars is also in action against Julie Burton. Perhaps the most interesting part of the whole card is the inclusion of heavyweight Alexey Ignashov. Ignashov has a storied career of ups and downs, mostly downs, sadly. Yet he’s still a fan favorite for the hardcore fans from yesteryear because of just [read more]

This weekend Kunlun Fight held two 70kg qualifying tournaments to help build out their big, ultra-massive 70kg tournament that helps to decide who is the undisputed king of one of the kickboxing world’s most prestigious divisions. The last tournament was won by Marat Grigorian and this year’s is just getting started. The first tournament saw Victor Nagbe defeat Elam Chavez (Ngor) in the first round, then defeat Hu Yafei via TKO in the third. The second qualifier saw Yohann Drai defeat Nikola Cimesa via an extension round and Feng Xingli defeating Michael Krcmar via decision. The two met in the [read more]

There was a time when I personally felt that drug testing athletes was imperative and that taking performance enhancing drugs was the largest sin possible in combat sports. The years have helped to erode those beliefs, especially when young, promising athletes, who often times are paid poorly for their sacrifices, are heavily fined and prevented from making a living for looking to science to help them prepare for their fights. Perhaps if there were common-sense punishments and oversight it would make a lot more sense, but there isn’t and to say that testing is inconsistent is to be kind. The [read more]

Kunlun Fight is known for their crazy tournaments and Kunlun Fight 70 marks the opening of the next giant KLF 70kg World Championship tournament. This tournament will be featured a lot of the best fighters in the world and should be delivering a lot of action as it plays out. We see the first two blocks of the tournament get started here at KLF 70, which will be airing on the Kunlun Fight app as well as on Fite.tv on March 11th. Sammy vs. Law Chosing 70kg Tournament Reserve: Saeid Charhardouli vs. Zhu Baotong 70kg Tournament Block 1: Shintaro Matsukura [read more]

There’s no secret here, K-1 Japan is perhaps the best promotion in the world when it comes down to pure match quality and top-to-bottom amazing shows. So the coming K’Festa.01 event that is planning for March 21st at the Saitama Super Arena is not just packed, but clocking in at about nine hours long. Watching this event will be difficult, but not impossible for us in the western world. The show starts at 11:00am Japan time for the prelims, the main card at 1:00pm. This show will have two intermissions and be approximately… nine hours. Nine. https://t.co/iRndnAbaCs you can sign [read more]

This past weekend at GLORY 51 the promotion announced the upcoming GLORY 53 Lille card, returning to the French city of Lille with what looks to be another stacked card. The main card is headlined by Cedric Doumbe as well as Anissa Meksen defending her GLORY Super Bantamweight Championship against Amel Dehby. There’s also a featherweight tournament to round things out. The SuperFight Series features a few, interesting fights, including Zinedine Hameur-Lain against Michael Duut in what should be a fun brawl and the debut of two of the best lightweights not previously in GLORY of Yohann Drai and Vlad [read more]